“But that doesn’t mean—”
“It doesn’t mean a lot of things,” she interrupted him. “Especially in the way I thought it would. But it does mean a few. Last night was a small moment in whatever time we have left. I did it because I didn’t want to miss out on something wonderful. I did it because I was frightened. I felt alone and vulnerable, and I wanted to feel something. I wanted to be close to someone, and you were there. I like you, Pan. Maybe I even love you. But last night was a small part of everything else that’s happening to us. That’s what I was thinking about this morning. I was thinking about what I have to do if I can stay alive long enough to do it. First of all, I have to discover what I am supposed to do with the Elfstones. Mistral gave them to me because she felt that using them would let me help my people. But how will they do that? How am I supposed to use them?”
She held up one hand quickly to stop him from saying anything. “Just let me finish this,” she said, stepping closer to him now, putting one hand on his cheek. “Let me say everything I have to say.”
He could feel her affection for him in the touch of her hand, and all of his anger and
growing sense of loss were suddenly gone, and he was ready to do anything for her.
“I have to go home again and face Isoeld. I have to find a way to prove that she had my father killed and should not be Queen of the Elves. I have to stand up with my people—with Tasha and Tenerife and Haren Crayel and all the others—against the Drouj. I have to find out if I can do what Mistral believed I could do. The choice is already made for me in all these things. I didn’t make it; it was made for me. It isn’t something I can walk away from. I know that now.”
Her hand dropped away. “Then, Pan, when that’s done, maybe I can think about us.
In the right way, the way I would like to—not just because of last night or some other night but because there might be a whole lot of nights, maybe even a lifetime. I can think about it because then there will be a future that isn’t measured in hours or days.”
“It isn’t measured that way now,” he insisted.
She gave him a sad smile. “Of course it is. You don’t have to pretend this is all going to turn out right. I know the odds of that happening. I know what we are up against.
But I need you to acknowledge that I do. Don’t pretend with me. Don’t try to shelter me.
I needed that yesterday, but today I’m someone else. I’m who I was always supposed to be, I hope. I’m strong enough to do what I have to do. I need you to be strong with me.”
He nodded slowly. “I just worry we’ve lost something since last night, and I don’t like how it makes me feel. I don’t like that you don’t think last night means something more —that maybe it doesn’t mean as much to you as it does to me. It makes me sad.”
She stepped up to him and kissed him hard on the mouth and held the kiss for a very long time. “There,” she said, stepping back. “That’s what it means to me.” She smiled at the look on his face. “But it’s over and done with, and we have to think about what’s coming. We have to leave last night behind.”
He didn’t want to leave last night behind. He wanted to build his life around it. He wanted to make it the beginning of everything. But he nodded slowly and forced himself to smile back.
“All right,” he agreed.
But it wasn’t all right and he wasn’t done with it, either, not now and not ever. That was what he promised himself as he let the matter drop.
THE DAY PASSED SLOWLY after that. Neither felt much like talking so mostly they were silent.
The only exchange of words came when Panterra—assiduously studying his surroundings in an effort to stop himself from thinking about Phryne—felt it necessary to pass along information on what his instincts and tracking skills were telling him.
Twice they crossed the prints of what he believed to be the cat they had seen the previous night. Although the tracks were several days old, he was taking no chances and made it a point to direct them a different way. Once, they caught sight of a solitary agenahl, huge and ponderous as it threaded the gaps between the forest trees.
Seemingly out of place in such confines, it nevertheless managed its way. It did not detect their presence, and they stood perfectly still until it was well out of sight.